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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23579794">Instrumental</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceCreAMS/pseuds/KrisseyCrystal'>KrisseyCrystal (IceCreAMS)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fluff Bingo [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Steven Universe (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bismuth is Cracked, F/F, Fluff, Fluff Bingo!, I Love You, Love Confessions, Pearl freaks out, Post-Steven Universe Future, Protecting Someone You Love, Steven Licks His Hand, What else is new, amethyst is there for like 2 seconds and over the phone only but it's fine, she counts - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:06:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,612</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23579794</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceCreAMS/pseuds/KrisseyCrystal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bismuth gets cracked.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bismuth/Pearl (Steven Universe)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fluff Bingo [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1655521</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>64</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Writing Squad Fluff Bingo</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Instrumental</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceCreAMS/gifts">MoominQuartz (IceCreAMS)</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The broken stonework of the world bursts into dust and fragments around her. It settles on her tongue and sticks to her throat. Bismuth coughs and hacks to try to get it out, but time is passing strangely and she’s not in full control of her limbs. Reality has been cut and pasted into snippets that reel past too quickly. Consciousness slips in and out of her grasp. Everything seems as flimsy as clouds, which, for the record, is not proper for construction. She’s told the Morganites over and over again: you can’t build a castle on top of sand. Did they listen?</p><p>There are birds chirping, twittering, from far away. It tastes like morning. She has always liked the seasonal changes on Earth. Very fitting. </p><p>Ivory keys dance along her shoulders and draw her into a slender chest. Someone is shouting.</p><p>Bismuth can’t make out the words. She thinks she wants to reach out to that voice. She thinks she ought to comfort them. She knows them.</p><p>“Just hang on!” </p><p>A butterfly has latched onto her hand. It’s funny; she hadn’t even been aware she had a hand until it was held.</p><p>Wait. That’s kind of whack. Of course she has hands. How else does she—</p><p>“It’s cool,” she tells the butterfly. She lifts her hand to eye level.  “Hey, now. Y’don’t gotta panic. Everything’s gonna be fine.”</p><p>“Bismuth? W-what are you…?”</p><p>Light bursts into a towering column that swallows them whole. Bismuth’s vision is filled with an alarming clarity, accompanied by the soft popping chime of an activated warp pad, which seems pretty confusing at first, considering that means they’re leaving the place Bismuth thinks they should probably be at.</p><p>“Hey,” she tells the butterfly, “The fountain…” </p><p>“Not now, Bismuth.” </p><p>The butterfly lands on her shoulder again as their destination solidifies under their bodies. There’s a breath, another young voice she knows that shouts, “Pearl!” and a rustle of grass.</p><p>“Steven! Oh, thank goodness—”</p><p>“—It’s okay, Pearl! I got your text! I’m here. Is she—?”</p><p>“—yes, she’s a little…”</p><p>Bismuth can’t make out what the words that were supposed to follow are. She blinks slowly and the next time she looks, her perfect view of Earth’s blue, blue sky has been eclipsed by pink shoulders and black clouds. </p><p>“Who put that floof there?” she mumbles and reaches up.</p><p>A salamander laughs and pushes her hand away before she can move back the black clouds. “Y-yeah, I see what you mean,” the salamander rumbles. He sucks in a sharp breath. “Oh, Bismuth…okay, here we go.” Then, something wet and warm and strange sets itself upon her gem. </p><p>And there’s pink.</p><p>And pink.</p><p>And pink—</p><p>Bismuth gasps upright hard. Her hair flings forward over her face; she shoves it back with a broad hand and winces before she realizes she can’t feel any pain. She’s fine. She <em> feels </em>fine. Her eyes snap to her whole, unblemished gem.</p><p>“I—”</p><p>“Bismuth!” Pearl’s wobbly voice is her first warning before she’s encircled in thin, white arms. Pearl’s face presses into her shoulder. “Oh thank goodness you’re all right! I was so terrified after…”</p><p>“Pearl—” Bismuth’s laugh dries up the instant Pearl pulls back. </p><p>That’s a scary look on her face Bismuth doesn’t think she’s ever seen before.</p><p>But Steven, on Bismuth’s other side—hey, she hasn’t seen him in a while; did he get his ears pierced?—winces as if he knows very well what that particular, specific turn of Pearl’s lips mean. “Oh boy,” he murmurs when Pearl opens her mouth.</p><p>“Bismuth.”</p><p>“P…Pearl?”</p><p>“Don’t you <em> dare </em>do that again.”</p><p>Clarity is a sharp mirror in Bismuth’s head, replaying the events preceding the wonkiness of the world. Bismuth sets her own mouth in an unhappy slant. </p><p>Steven frets. “Uh, do what again? Guys?”</p><p>“I can’t promise you that.”</p><p>“Yes! You can! I can take care of myself, Bismuth. I have for millennia<em>. </em>”</p><p>“You think I don’t know that?”</p><p>“When you pull stunts like—like <em> that</em>, you certainly seem to suggest—“ </p><p>“—I was just trying to protect you!”</p><p>“And look what it did!” Pearl throws out her hand. “That fusion, whatever she called herself, Charoite? Whatever; she got away! And even worse than that: Rose’s fountain is now in ruins! Gallons of her healing tears, lost! It’s going to take ages for Steven to be able to replenish that, if he even can!”</p><p>“Uh, guys?”</p><p>Bismuth scowls. “It’s fine, isn’t it? I’ll fix it! It’ll look just as good as it did before. At least <em> that’s </em>something I’m good to have around for, anyway.” </p><p>“What?!”</p><p>Pearl’s voice pitches high to a degree Bismuth hasn’t heard in centuries<em> . </em></p><p>Bismuth and Steven’s gazes snap to her. Pearl’s brows are pinched tight on her face, peaking just below her gem. Her pale blues shine under the sunlight peeking through the canopy of leaves high above. She looks hurt and wounded, which is the strangest thing considering that last Bismuth checked, she had done everything she could to ensure that <em> wouldn’t </em>happen.</p><p>“Bismuth,” Pearl says and Bismuth has never quite heard her name sound like <em>that</em> before, like someone <em>needed </em>to say it, “this is exactly the problem.”</p><p>The sensation of a hand against her cheek is new. Pearl’s touch is gentle. Warm.</p><p>Steven’s face softens from worry to something else: something starry-eyed and open-mouthed as he watches them.</p><p>“How could you possibly think you matter so little to me?”</p><p>“W-what?”</p><p>“You honestly think I don’t want you around for more than fixing things? That you’re…”</p><p>Bismuth kind of feels like she wants to take back her words, now. Her face is burning, burning, burning. Her stomach has swooped. There’s embarrassment and something giddy rising in her chest all at once. She doesn’t know what to do with it. “Aw, geez, Pearl, nah. I didn’t mean to…”</p><p>“<em>Don’t </em>do that again.”</p><p>There’s something in the way Pearl’s voice shakes as she repeats her words. Something in the press of her fingers into the edge of Bismuth’s jaw.</p><p>Bismuth chuckles, low and quiet. She dips her head. “Pearl, you know I can’t promise you that.”</p><p>“No! I don’t know. Why not?”</p><p>Aw, stars. Is <em> this </em> the moment? Bismuth would be lying if she tried to say she hadn’t imagined over and over again how she’d confess the big, goopy mess inside her that’s <em> feelings </em> . She could have done big, grand, pre-planned gestures, or small, intimate ones. She always fancied making Pearl something, but could never decide what would be good enough. She never figured the opportune moment would be immediately post-almost making Pearl <em>cry</em>.</p><p>But then Pearl looks at her with those big eyes and all that concern and with all that grace in her and Bismuth thinks maybe, well, maybe she’s been thinking too much.</p><p>She would just really awfully like to hold her.</p><p>“Pearl, I—”</p><p>“—aw, just <em> kiss </em>already!”</p><p>The tinny voice echoes across the forest clearing, followed by shocked and indignant, “Amethyst!”</p><p>Amethyst’s voice cackles loudly from Steven’s phone as he hurriedly jams his thumb over the face of his screen. Just before it clicks off, Amethyst shouts out, “Hah! Hurry, Steve-O! Warp to the temple! Pearl still can’t get into my room; you’ll be safe here!” and Steven’s face is red red red. He stuffs both hands in the pockets of his jacket and shoots to his feet. Quick as he can, he bolts for the warp, shouting, “Sorry!”</p><p>The only one perhaps most off-color than all of them is Pearl. She stands, aghast, but by the time she reaches out, the warp pad chimes and a familiar, melodious pillar of light stretches to the sky. </p><p>“Steven! Get back here!”</p><p>“For the record: it was Amethyst who video-called m—!” Steven’s voice is cut off before he can finish.</p><p>Pearl stares at the place she last saw his red flip flops against the top of the warp pad’s surface.</p><p>Bismuth can’t help it. </p><p>She laughs. She laughs and laughs and falls back against the grass, arms spread out in an open invitation to the sky.</p><p>Pearl slaps a hand over her face and lets it slowly fall. “Ugh. I’m sorry. Those two can be so insufferable together. They have no concept of personal boundaries whatsoever.”</p><p>“Oh, believe me. I know.” Bismuth sits back up once her chuckles have subsided. She props up an elbow on her knee and looks to Pearl with a lazy grin. “I mean, I was just thinkin’: y’know, it’s such a shame Steven probably had to leave his Dondai parked somewhere around here when he came to meet us at this warp pad…it’d be a tragedy if, y’know, somethin’ happened to it while he was hiding…”</p><p>Pearl blinks. Slowly, she smiles and presses a hand to her own cheek. “Why, Bismuth! I knew there was a reason I love you.”</p><p>And there it is.</p><p>And it’s so simple to hear. </p><p>And it’s perhaps the first time Bismuth has ever actually heard the words, which is funny, because after all of her imagining and all of her notions about what this moment would be like: to know that she matters and is cared for reciprocally…she never expected for it to be so <em> unsurprising. </em></p><p>Pearl smiles at her as if she, too, knew exactly what she was saying and wanted it said and had no trouble at all saying it.</p><p>It makes Bismuth think maybe, she’s been hearing those words all along, too. Maybe she’s been trying to say them back just as much: throwing herself into harm’s way, trying to protect her, but these are not the ways Pearl wants it said.</p><p>“Yeah,” she hums instead. “I love you, too, Pearl.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>so my amazing, super awesome husband Isaiah (MoominQuartz) couldn't decide if he wanted to request BisPearl with "Competition" or "Protecting Someone You Love" and I said "porque no los dos??" so I already did "Competition," and now I'm finishing this duet with "Protecting Someone You Love" which is SO supremely satisfying</p><p>I love these two.</p><p>also, to keep up with my running gag of all my Fluff Bingo! prompt fulfillments being named after the music I listened to while writing it, I was going to name this after the instrumental guitar song I kept playing in the background but considering it was called "my favorite regret" i literally could not call this that so I got Big Brained and said to myself "instrumental is a double entendre in this fic, anyway" and here we are</p><p>hope you enjoyed &lt;3 feel free to request any more <a href="https://krisseycrystal.tumblr.com/post/615032317383245824/rated-g-fandom-steven-universe-prompt">Fluff Bingo! prompts</a> if you like [mr. bennet voice] i'm quite at my leisure</p></blockquote></div></div>
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